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rclone dedupe ​

Interactively find duplicate filenames and delete/rename them.

Synopsis ​

By default dedupe interactively finds files with duplicate names and offers to delete all but one or rename them to be different. This is known as deduping by name.

Deduping by name is only useful with a small group of backends (e.g. Google Drive, Opendrive) that can have duplicate file names. It can be run on wrapping backends (e.g. crypt) if they wrap a backend which supports duplicate file names.

However if --by-hash is passed in then dedupe will find files with duplicate hashes instead which will work on any backend which supports at least one hash. This can be used to find files with duplicate content. This is known as deduping by hash.

If deduping by name, first rclone will merge directories with the same name. It will do this iteratively until all the identically named directories have been merged.

Next, if deduping by name, for every group of duplicate file names / hashes, it will delete all but one identical file it finds without confirmation. This means that for most duplicated files the dedupe command will not be interactive.

dedupe considers files to be identical if they have the same file path and the same hash. If the backend does not support hashes (e.g. crypt wrapping Google Drive) then they will never be found to be identical. If you use the --size-only flag then files will be considered identical if they have the same size (any hash will be ignored). This can be useful on crypt backends which do not support hashes.

Next rclone will resolve the remaining duplicates. Exactly which action is taken depends on the dedupe mode. By default, rclone will interactively query the user for each one.

Important: Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run or the --interactive/-i flag.

Here is an example run.

Before - with duplicates

$ rclone lsl drive:dupes
  6048320 2016-03-05 16:23:16.798000000 one.txt
  6048320 2016-03-05 16:23:11.775000000 one.txt
   564374 2016-03-05 16:23:06.731000000 one.txt
  6048320 2016-03-05 16:18:26.092000000 one.txt
  6048320 2016-03-05 16:22:46.185000000 two.txt
  1744073 2016-03-05 16:22:38.104000000 two.txt
   564374 2016-03-05 16:22:52.118000000 two.txt

Now the dedupe session

$ rclone dedupe drive:dupes
2016/03/05 16:24:37 Google drive root 'dupes': Looking for duplicates using interactive mode.
one.txt: Found 4 files with duplicate names
one.txt: Deleting 2/3 identical duplicates (MD5 "1eedaa9fe86fd4b8632e2ac549403b36")
one.txt: 2 duplicates remain
  1:      6048320 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:23:16.798000000, MD5 1eedaa9fe86fd4b8632e2ac549403b36
  2:       564374 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:23:06.731000000, MD5 7594e7dc9fc28f727c42ee3e0749de81
s) Skip and do nothing
k) Keep just one (choose which in next step)
r) Rename all to be different (by changing file.jpg to file-1.jpg)
s/k/r> k
Enter the number of the file to keep> 1
one.txt: Deleted 1 extra copies
two.txt: Found 3 files with duplicate names
two.txt: 3 duplicates remain
  1:       564374 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:22:52.118000000, MD5 7594e7dc9fc28f727c42ee3e0749de81
  2:      6048320 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:22:46.185000000, MD5 1eedaa9fe86fd4b8632e2ac549403b36
  3:      1744073 bytes, 2016-03-05 16:22:38.104000000, MD5 851957f7fb6f0bc4ce76be966d336802
s) Skip and do nothing
k) Keep just one (choose which in next step)
r) Rename all to be different (by changing file.jpg to file-1.jpg)
s/k/r> r
two-1.txt: renamed from: two.txt
two-2.txt: renamed from: two.txt
two-3.txt: renamed from: two.txt

The result being

$ rclone lsl drive:dupes
  6048320 2016-03-05 16:23:16.798000000 one.txt
   564374 2016-03-05 16:22:52.118000000 two-1.txt
  6048320 2016-03-05 16:22:46.185000000 two-2.txt
  1744073 2016-03-05 16:22:38.104000000 two-3.txt

Dedupe can be run non interactively using the --dedupe-mode flag or by using an extra parameter with the same value

  • --dedupe-mode interactive - interactive as above.
  • --dedupe-mode skip - removes identical files then skips anything left.
  • --dedupe-mode first - removes identical files then keeps the first one.
  • --dedupe-mode newest - removes identical files then keeps the newest one.
  • --dedupe-mode oldest - removes identical files then keeps the oldest one.
  • --dedupe-mode largest - removes identical files then keeps the largest one.
  • --dedupe-mode smallest - removes identical files then keeps the smallest one.
  • --dedupe-mode rename - removes identical files then renames the rest to be different.
  • --dedupe-mode list - lists duplicate dirs and files only and changes nothing.

For example, to rename all the identically named photos in your Google Photos directory, do

rclone dedupe --dedupe-mode rename "drive:Google Photos"

Or

rclone dedupe rename "drive:Google Photos"

rclone dedupe [mode] remote:path [flags]

Options ​

      --by-hash              Find identical hashes rather than names
      --dedupe-mode string   Dedupe mode interactive|skip|first|newest|oldest|largest|smallest|rename (default "interactive")
  -h, --help                 help for dedupe

Options shared with other commands are described next. See the global flags page for global options not listed here.

Important Options ​

Important flags useful for most commands

  -n, --dry-run         Do a trial run with no permanent changes
  -i, --interactive     Enable interactive mode
  -v, --verbose count   Print lots more stuff (repeat for more)

See Also ​

  • rclone - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.

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